Solar showdown: U.S., China need to settle trade dispute

By Zvi Alon

Special to the Mercury News

Posted:
05/21/2014 09:00:00 AM PDT

Updated:
05/21/2014 01:49:06 PM PDT

Propelled by international cooperation, the U.S. solar industry has made amazing strides. Last year alone the industry employed over 20,000 new workers and grew at a rate 10 times faster than the national average.

Like many other industries based here in Silicon Valley, the solar industry views countries such as China and Taiwan not as competitors but as natural partners. Through international cooperation we are producing American jobs and fueling affordable solar energy which, for the first time, can now compete head-to-head on price with coal, natural gas, and other nonrenewable forms of electricity.

Given the chance, the solar industry will rewrite the future of energy generation. But storm clouds hover over our industry due to trade complaints filed by SolarWorld with the U.S. International Trade Commission and Department of Commerce.

SolarWorld, a European firm that operates facilities in Oregon, seeks to impose new tariffs on solar products imported from China, as well as expand tariffs to include products from Taiwan. These legal cases threaten to restrict trade and raise solar prices nationwide.

Here at Tigo Energy, we firmly believe that these trade petitions are misguided. Far from protecting U.S. solar, these tariffs would hurt the nearly 150,000 American workers employed by our industry and reduce the proliferation of clean energy across the country.

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At Tigo, as is common throughout Silicon Valley, international collaboration has helped us to create good-paying, high-tech jobs.

Our 50 engineers are designing next-generation communication and power optimization technology that connects solar panels to the Internet and improves efficiency and safety. These products are used by hundreds of businesses across the U.S. who are designing, installing, and maintaining systems -- all tasks that cannot be outsourced.

Contributing to the new affordability of solar energy are innovations in material science, equipment processes, and even information technology supplied by American technology companies like Tigo. Potential new tariffs threaten to reverse this trend, raise the price of solar energy and halt our industry's rapid growth.

Imposing new tariffs will not just harm the solar industry but also the many American companies that sell goods in China. Moves against free trade by one nation often result in retaliatory actions by another, and China has not been slow in aggressively responding to protective tariffs in the past.

After SolarWorld successfully levied a first protective tariff against Chinese-made solar panels in 2012, China responded with tariffs against American-manufactured polysilicon, a major solar cell input.

There is still time for the parties to come to the table and negotiate a settlement that preserves affordable solar energy in the United States. A bipartisan group of seven U.S. senators recently sent a letter to Vice President Joe Biden urging the White House to "engage with all U.S. stakeholders to resolve this trade dispute as soon as possible."

Our industry needs certainty to succeed, and by negotiating a settlement and rejecting future tariffs, we will guarantee continued growth.

We must seize this opportunity before the Department of Commerce announces a preliminary decision on the trade case in June. By negotiating, rather than litigating, a solution to the trade case we can safeguard a bright future for America's solar industry.

Zvi Alon is the chairman and CEO of Tigo Energy headquartered in Los Gatos. He wrote this for this newspaper.